Did Iran Reject Obama's Overture?

Iran's response to a supposedly conciliatory address March 20 by President
Barack Obama has been met with a torrent of "we-told-you-so's" by
the US media.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
had simply "dismissed President Obama's extraordinary Persian New Year
greeting ..."

The Christian Science Monitor said the president's gesture had been "greeted
coolly" by Khamenei.

And an Associated Press report carried by, among others, The New York Times,
called Khamenei's response a "rebuff" that "was swift and sweeping."

Was it?

President Obama used the occasion of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, to issue
a message to both the Iranian people and its government that was noteworthy
both for its tone and much of its substance. Implicitly rejecting the arrogant
bellicosity of the Cheney-Bush years, the president stressed that his administration
"is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues
before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and
the international community."

Specifically, Obama reiterated his already-stated preference for diplomacy
over the threat of military force. "This process [pursuing constructive
ties] will not be advanced by threats," he said. "We seek instead
engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."

President Obama's remarks were considered highly unusual for several reasons.
First, instead of attempting, like President George W. Bush before him, to go
over the heads of Iran's government and talk "directly" to the Iranian
people, Obama pointedly directed his remarks to both the Iranian people and
their government. And he referred to the country by its official name, the Islamic
Republic of Iran, implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of that government.
And he stated that the US wants Iran "to take its rightful place in the
community of nations," acknowledging that "You have that right ..."

So why was Iran's response so negative?

Well, first of all, it wasn't.

The office of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the first to
respond to Obama's "overture."

In a statement to Press TV, Iran's English-language television channel, presidential
aide Ali-Akbar Javanfekr said, "If Mr. Obama takes concrete action and
makes fundamental changes in US foreign policy towards other nations, including
Iran, the Iranian government and people won't turn their back on him."

As reported by the Iranian Fars News Agency, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki commented on Obama's address, saying, "We are glad that Nowruz
has been a source for friendship and we are pleased that the Nowruz message
is a message for coexistence, peace and friendship for the whole world."

Press TV itself reported on President Obama's address in a March 20 online
article titled "Obama scores points with Iran message," noting that
"his remarks, a significant departure from the tone of the previous administration,
were well-received around the globe." The news channel also carried a link
to Obama's address.

The US media generally focused on the response by Iran's Supreme Leader, currently
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is not only the country's top religious leader but
also its military commander-in-chief.

Addressing a large crowd on March 22 in his home town of Mashhad in northeastern
Iran, the ayatollah touched on Obama's remarks, noting that "Of course,
we have no prior experience of the new president of the American republic and
of the government, and therefore we shall make our judgment based on his actions."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but neither was it a cold rebuff or dismissal.

Khamenei went on to list some of the major Iranian complaints against the US,
including 30 years of sanctions that include the seizure of important Iranian
assets; supporting Saddam Hussein in his 1980 invasion of Iran, an act of aggression
that led to an eight-year war and "300,000 Iranian martyrs;" the US
government's continuing unconditional support for Israel; the loss of nearly
300 civilian lives in the 1988 downing of an Iranian airbus by the USS Vincennes
warship, an air disaster the US called an accident but one for which it has
never apologized; and alleged US support for anti-Iranian terrorist attacks
along the Iran-Pakistan border.

The Fars agency reported that "Ayatollah Khamenei noted that the American
new government says that it has stretched its hands towards Iran, and we say
if cast-iron hands have been hidden under a velvety glove, so this move would
be in vain."

Then, according to Fars, came the nub of the Iranian response: "Pointing
to America's message over the new Iranian year, Ayatollah Khamenei said they
even had accused Iran of supporting terror and seeking nuclear weapons. He asked
if it [Obama's Nowruz greeting] is a congratulation or continuation of the same
accusations."

Good point. In his address, President Obama wrapped this chestnut in the soothing
message of conciliation: "The United States wants the Islamic Republic
of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that
right - but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot
be reached through terror or arms [my emphasis - P.W.], but rather
through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian
people and civilization."

So President Obama, like Bush before him, is still accusing Iran of promoting
terrorism and relying on "arms," an obvious reference to charges that
Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons, charges Iran has repeatedly rejected.

As the ayatollah asked, was Obama's Nowruz greeting "a congratulation
or continuation of the same accusations"?

And is it unreasonable to declare, as Khamenei did in his speech in Mashhad,
that Iran will evaluate the Obama administration based on its actions?

Some of those actions are already clear.

Earlier in March, President Obama formally extended by one year a set of unilateral
sanctions against Iran that were first imposed in 1995 by President Bill Clinton.
Not exactly a confidence-building measure for the Iranians.

But not a departure from Obama policy, either. In his Senate confirmation hearing,
then-Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner came out strongly in favor
of the Bush policy of increasingly repressive sanctions against Iran.

"I agree wholeheartedly that the Department of the Treasury has done outstanding
work in ratcheting up the pressure on Iran," Geithner told members of the
Senate Finance Committee, "both by vigorously enforcing our sanctions against
Iran and by sharing information with key financial actors around the world about
how Iran's deceptive conduct poses a threat to the integrity of the financial
system."

Interesting. So it was Iran whose actions were threatening the financial system
- not AIG, Citicorp or Bernard Madoff.

"If confirmed as secretary of the Treasury," Geithner continued,
"I would consider the full range of tools available to the US Department
of the Treasury, including unilateral measures, to prevent Iran from misusing
the financial system to engage in proliferation and terrorism."

Then there's Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. During her
run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton felt it necessary to
say she would "obliterate" Iran if it were to attack Israel.

During his campaign, Obama himself repeatedly stated that, in dealing with
Iran, military force would always be an option.

Further, Obama's point man on Iran at the State Department is Dennis Ross,
a longtime supporter of Israel who subscribes to the neocon belief that Iran's
president "sees himself as an instrument for accelerating the coming of
the 12th Imam - which is preceded in the mythology by the equivalent of Armageddon."
(1)

Ross, by the way, is a co-founder of the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, which includes on its board of advisors such luminaries as former secretaries
of state Alexander Haig and Henry A. Kissinger, former Assistant Secretary of
Defense Richard Perle, former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey
and, at its founding, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick.

The Institute recently released a "Presidential Study Group Report"
titled "Preventing a Cascade of Instability: US Engagement to Check Iranian
Nuclear Progress." The report calls for increasing pressure on Iran to
force it to end its nuclear program: "If engagement fails to produce an
agreement, a strategy of tightening economic sanctions and international political
pressure in conjunction with all other policy instruments
[Emphasis added - P.W.] provides a basis for long-term containment of Iran's
nuclear ambitions." (2)

Of course, the report doesn't mention that Iran has a sovereign right to develop
nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes, a right recognized by the United
Nations because Iran is a signatory to the UN's Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty,
or NPT. The NPT's inspection arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has
carried out repeated and extensive inspections of Iran's nuclear program and
each time has concluded that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.
That evaluation was seconded in November 2007 by the 16 US intelligence agencies
in their annual National Intelligence Estimate - their annual evaluation of
potential threats to the US.

And yet the charge of a secret nuclear weapons program continues under the
Obama administration, as it did under Bush.

It's a charge heavily aided by the media.

The Associated Press, a US-based, nationally oriented news service, produces
and/or circulates news stories published by more than 1,700 newspapers, plus
more than 5,000 television and radio broadcasters. It also operates The Associated
Press Radio Network, which provides newscasts for broadcast and satellite stations.

In other words, it has juice.

And this is how the AP, which regularly refers vaguely and therefore deceptively
to "Iran's nuclear ambitions," covered the Iranian reaction to Obama's
Nowruz greetings:

"... Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's response was more than just
a dismissive slap at the outreach. It was a broad lesson in the mind-set of
Iran's all-powerful theocracy and how it will dictate the pace and tone of any
new steps by Obama to chip away at their nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze."

That's supposed to be a news report, by the way, not an op-ed piece.

The AP report, by longtime AP reporter Brian Murphy, went on to quote a series
of "experts" on Iran, including Patrick Clawson, deputy director of
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Ilan Berman, vice president
for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council.

We've already discussed the Washington Institute.

Ilan Berman has consulted for both the US Central Intelligence Agency and the
US Department of Defense. He's also a member of the reconstituted Cold War-era
Committee on the Present Danger, which includes among its illustrious roster
former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, a "leading writer and ideologue
of the nonconservative political faction since the group began to emerge in
the late 1960s." (3)

So what can we conclude from all this?

The Obama administration, just like the Bush regime before it, is demanding
that Iran end its pursuit of nuclear power, an effort it claims is a cover for
producing nuclear weapons. It provides no evidence for its accusation, and neither
can the UN's nuclear proliferation inspection agency or any of the 16 US intelligence
agencies. And Iran, as a signatory to the UN's NPT, has every right to pursue
nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes.

But yet the Obama administration demands that Iran end that legal program.
To which Iran's leaders say, not surprisingly, "No."

So what was the real purpose of President Obama's Nowruz message to the Iranian
people and its government?

A March 21 Wall Street Journal story on the Nowruz address offers one possible
explanation:

"Senior US officials say [Obama's] administration wants to persuade the
world that it is different from President George W. Bush and is going the extra
mile to give Iran a chance. If Tehran rebuffs the overtures and sticks to its
nuclear program, Washington can more easily seek broad support for coercive
measures, such as financial sanctions or even potential military action, they
say." (4)

Phil Wilayto is the editor of The Virginia Defender newspaper and author of "In Defense of Iran: Notes from a US Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic." He can be reached at: [email protected].